Is there a command to "refresh" the Plasma desktop?

Help
1

I’ve discovered that, when putting an image file on the desktop, and then using either XnView, GIMP or GrafX2 (possibly many other programs aswell), the image thumbnail on the Plasma desktop does not update, regardless of how long you wait. However, when doing the exact same thing in either Krita, Gwenview or KolourPaint (probably many others as well), it does instantly update the image’s thumbnail.

It seems to me as if KDE-developed programs do some sort of extra task after saving the image, so that the desktop knows to update. GIMP is not a KDE program but a famous classic on Linux, and I can reproduce it every time I try with that program.

All the online search results talk about how to “restart Plasma”, which is definitely not what I’m trying to do. I merely want to do what happens when you press F5 while on the desktop, or when you right-click anywhere on the desktop and click “Refresh Desktop”.

ChatGPT told me to use qdbus org.kde.plasmashell /PlasmaShell org.kde.PlasmaShell.refresh, which looked promising but only results in this error:

Error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod
No such method 'refresh' in interface 'org.kde.PlasmaShell' at object path '/PlasmaShell' (signature '')

Questions:

  1. Is there some command to do this from the terminal (a script)? If so, I can bypass this annoyance by repeatedly calling that command, or right after I have performed some automatic operation where I know that an image is on the desktop and has been modified.
  2. Are programs on Linux expected to do something besides “saving the file” for the desktop/GUI to learn about this? In other words: is GIMP etc. violating some protocol? It seems strange to me that they should have to think about this.
  3. Does it happen for you with one of the programs mentioned? If so, how do you deal with it?

I don’t believe that this is in any way related to Debian. Since my other issues with the desktop’s icons are gone, I can only assume that this happens regardless of the distro (Plasma 5.x). Maybe it does happen for everyone but only on Plasma 5.x?

2

At this point, it seems that you’ve found a bug, and the right course of action is to report it so developers can set about figuring out what’s going on and eventually fixing it.

As for where the bug is? I have no idea; it needs some investigation.

3

Hi -

I don’t normally use the ones mentioned, but tried installing GIMP on my Fedora KDE 41 system (Plasma 6.2.5). In my case, the desktop thumbnail updated pretty much immediately after overwriting an existing image on by using GIMP to export an edited version over top of it.

For what it’s worth then, your experiencing that issue might not be directly because of some Debian-specific patch or packaging decision, but if it’s a Plasma 5 bug then it’s likely one that’s since been solved.

4

Your first line of defence might be simply to refresh the thumbnail (Plasma currently has issues showing ‘custom’ icons at least).

Right click the icon (context menu appears) click desktop - or hit Escape.

5

As far as I know, that issue happened pretty much on every 5-ish I know off. As for xnview, it’s an issue which is well known, regardless of the DE, but in terms of Gimp, ksnip…it doesn’t update. The notification is correct though, the desktop file isn’t unless you hit F5 or edit the file with something else and gets saved to the desktop as a new file. If it’s solved on 6-ish, good.